Motor Primitives in Humans and Robots

When reading papers on human motor development or motor control, you're
likely to run across the terms "primitive reflexes" and "motor
primitives". Not suprisingly, these terms have different meanings
depending on which field of research they're used in. Recently released
online, is a 2005 paper by Jürgen
Konczak titled, "On the notion of motor
primitives in humans and robots" (PDF format), which sorts out the
meanings of these phrases in each field. Konczak provides an overview of
the human motor system which he believes will benefit those designing
motor control systems for robots. For more information Konczak's work,
visit the
University of Minnesota's Human
Senorimotor Control Lab.